3D TV: The Four Things You Need to Know

3D TV was by far the most visible new technology at CES this year: It dominated the show and the coverage. But while I've long thought 3D is fascinating and will be important in the future, I'm convinced it will be little more than a niche curiosity in home entertainment this year, despite the massive push coming from all the TV makers.

3D TV was by far the most visible new technology at CES this year: It dominated the show and the coverage. But while I've long thought 3D is fascinating and will be important in the future, I'm convinced it will be little more than a niche curiosity in home entertainment this year, despite the massive push coming from all the TV makers.

That said, there was a lot of good news coming from the show about 3D technology. Nearly every TV maker had a 3D demonstration, and the vast majority of them plan to bring "3D-ready" sets to market by the next holiday season. Most of the standards required for 3D are starting to get settled, including a standard for storing 3D material on Blu-ray and for connecting such new Blu-ray players to new TVs. And we saw the beginnings of mass-market content.

But having sat through more than a dozen demos of 3D during the show, I'm convinced that the TV industry has a lot of work to do in explaining the various kinds of 3D and, perhaps most important, making 3D TV easier to watch. I'm convinced that most of the content makers still have a long way to go before they can make 3D TV not just a gimmick but an essential part of storytelling.

Meanwhile, there's a lot of information about 3D TV floating around, and also a lot of curiosity on the part of potential consumers. Here are the four things you need to know in looking at 3D TV.

3D displays are not all the same: There are lots 3D displays on the market, and many are not compatible with each other. The biggest push for the home market for this year will be from fast sets using "active shutter" glasses. Most of these will be 240-Hz LCDs, typically with LED backlighting (either full backlighting or edge-lit), although some will be fast plasma displays.

Samsung may have gotten the most attention with its announcement of six series of TVs with 3D capability: three "LED TV" series (LCDs with LED backlighting), one LCD series, and two plasma series. But LG, Sony, Toshiba , Vizio, and just about everyone else was promoting it as well.

The advantage of the active glasses system is that it doesn't involve big changes to the sets themselves. They just need a fast-enough display, a transmitter (to send signals to the glasses), and the glasses themselves. I would expect add-on kits for such "3D-ready" TVs to be about $200. And they typically allow full resolution--1,920-by-1,080 images for each eye in what is called a "frame sequential" format. On the other hand, the glasses are relatively expensive and a bit heavier than the passive glasses other systems use.

A major alternative to this is a system that uses passive glasses. On LCDs, this means a much more expensive display, because it involves a polarizing filter placed on the display itself and aligned by hand, line by line. JVC had a great demo of its 46-inch GD-463D10 monitor using Xpol and circular polarizing glasses from RealD.

The only two demos of this on LCDs I saw were from JVC and Hyundai. In this system, the glasses are much less expensive (cheap enough to be paid for by advertising in many theaters), but the sets are more expensive, and you only get half the resolution (540 lines in each eye).

This system also works on projection TVs. JVC showed one demo using a single projector and polarized glasses, and another very impressive 4K-by-2K demo using twin $175,000 projectors--clearly aimed at studios, not homes. If you've seen 3D in a theater, odds are that you've seen a combination of projectors and passive glasses. ("Avatar" was amazing.)

Many of the DLP-based projection systems, such as Mitsubishi's, use a "checkerboard" pattern. Mitsubishi announced a new 3D adapter, due out this spring, that will convert images into a compatible format.

There are even 3D displays that work without glasses, and Samsung had one on display. Such lenticular displays have been around for a while, but they tend to have relatively low resolution and show the proper 3D effect only when you stand at a particular spot. For now, that makes them most suited for digital signage.

One interesting thing is how different people react to the various 3D displays. I find the 3D effect a bit more jarring with the active glasses method as opposed to passive glasses, and I think the passive version would be better suited for long-term viewing for me. But others I talked to had completely the opposite reaction.

I thought active glasses looked better on the plasma demos than on the LCD ones, and even better on OLED displays in booths at Samsung and Sony (although such displays are still a long way from becoming mainstream). The projection demos may have been the best, but of course, those were all shown in darkened rooms, where the lighting conditions are perfect.

3D content is coming: One of the concerns about 3D in the home is a lack of content. We've all seen an increasing number of 3D movies, but it's still a relatively small amount of content, though increasing at a great pace. It looks like the industry has agreed to put out almost all these new 3D movies in 3D Blu-ray format in the next year, and that will provide a lot of content.

Add to that content from cable and satellite TV providers. ESPN has plans for a 3D network with programming including a lot of World Cup matches and the 2011 BCS Championship football game. DirecTV said it plans to offer three 3D channels this summer, including a pay-per-view service, as well as a deal with Panasonic. to promote the service with the company's TVs. British satellite provider B Sky B plans to launch a channel this year. A consortium of Sony, Discovery Channel, and IMAX has announced a 3D-only channel, though it's not scheduled to launch for two years.

I continue to believe that sports is the most important application here. But although I've seen some great footage of individual moments in 3D, directors and producers still have a lot to learn about filming such events to really take advantage of 3D. At CES, I talked with the CEO of 3ality, who said that the demand for the company's 3D camera rigs was growing tremendously but that sports directors are still working on "the language" for showing 3D properly. With lots more programming scheduled, this should improve fairly rapidly.

Of course, most video games are already 3D in their design, and Nvidia's 3D Vision includes active shutter glasses that give you a 3D effect on hundreds of games if you have the right graphics card and monitor or TV. And finally, some TVs and set top boxes will be able to convert 2D content to 3D. Toshiba in particular was pushing this feature as part of its CellTV initiative, but others were showing similar features.

The standards for 3D are coming together: A lot of the concern about 3D centers on the various competing standards. The good news is that most of the big companies have now agreed enough on the formats and standards that whichever set you choose, you should be able to get content. The Blu-ray Disc Association has finalized its standard for 3D on Blu-ray disks, while the HDMI consortium has settled on the cable standards to connect 3D Blu-ray or other 3D content to your TV (which involves making sure your cable can handle at least 10.2 Gb per second).

While there are differing technologies for glasses, even there we're beginning to see standardization. RealD announced partnerships with Sony, Samsung, Toshiba, and Panasonic to deliver active shutter glasses, so these should be compatible with one another. The company is also a big producer of passive stereoscopic glasses.

You will need to upgrade: No matter what TV you currently own, you will need some kind of update to get 3D--even if you already have a "3D-Ready" set. For most flat-screen displays, you will typically need to buy a kit with a transmitter and active shutter glasses. Prices aren't final yet, but it should be around $200. For projectors, you will likely need a kit to convert the 3D signals into the format the sets need. Some set-top boxes may be able to upgrade to handle 3D with only a change in software, but you'll likely need a new Blu-ray player and a new cable for 3D titles.

All of this makes the transition a bit complicated, and when you're done, in most cases, you'll still need to wear the special glasses. Frankly, that's a pain. My guess is that most people who buy 3D TVs will use the 3D feature only occasionally, for special events. And considering how expensive the glasses are, you're unlikely to use them if you have lots of friends over to watch TV.

So I would guess that for now, home 3D TV is likely to stay a niche market. I spoke with an analyst from DisplaySearch who projects only 1.2 million 3D TVs sold this year, out of over 200 million TVs. In the long run, though, "3D Ready" sets (with the ability to show the images but without the glasses) are very likely to become mainstream, because they really don't cost much more to make, and increased content and decreasing costs should make such sets much more popular. As a result, DisplaySearch predicts 3DTV will grow to 180 milllion units by 2018.

What I think we may see in the interim is 3D projectors and displays using the passive glasses move into places like sports bars, where lots of people can gather for special events. And those glasses are so inexpensive, they can be built into the cost of admission, or even the cost of drinks.

I doubt I'll be able to have a 3D SuperBowl party at my house next year. But I wouldn't be surprised to be able to see it in 3D at a local sports bar.

Michael J. Miller's Forward Thinking Blog: forwardthinking.pcmag.com
Michael J. Miller is chief information officer at Ziff Brothers Investments, a private investment firm. From 1991 to 2005, Miller was editor-in-chief of PC Magazine, responsible for the editorial direction, quality and presentation of the world's largest computer publication.
Until late 2006, Miller was the Chief Content Officer for Ziff Davis Media, responsible for overseeing the editorial positions of Ziff Davis's magazines, websites, and events. As Editorial Director for Ziff Davis Publishing since 1997, Miller took an active role in...
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